


Counting Couplets, Counting Crows

by comixologist



Category: New X-Men: Academy X
Genre: Aftermath, Canonical Character Death, Flashback, House of M - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-18
Updated: 2010-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-13 18:12:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comixologist/pseuds/comixologist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight for a wish, and nine for a kiss, but Josh and Kevin will never get that far.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counting Couplets, Counting Crows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fuzzytale](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuzzytale/gifts).



Josh looked down at his hands and tried to count the black spots. It was hard. They kept moving: shifting around, melting into each other and then breaking off again. He felt like the scene of an oil disaster, coated in black stuff that wouldn't come off. Trying to count the spots calmed him down. It made him think that maybe his entire body wasn't coated in death.

 _One, two, three, four - no, that was still three – that was four there, five, six, seven..._

He lost count, bit his lip and tried again.

 

 _One for sorrow_  
The day was sunny, warm and happy - although from the perspective of the New Mutant team, it might as well have been about to start up a thunderstorm.

"What the hell don't you get, Foley? I'm on your team, so suck it up. It's not like I want to be on a team with a bigot, anyway," Kevin clenched his fists and the pleather gloves made a strange squeaking sound.

Josh leaned in close - almost close enough to touch - and glared, nearly bearing his teeth at Kevin. "If not wanting to be on a team with a guy who can kill with one touch of his bare hands makes me a bigot, then I guess I'm racist against you, Kevin. You're dangerous, and I don't want you anywhere near _my_ friends."

David tried to slip in between them. It wasn't an easy feat to get between a furious healer and a defensive boy with a death touch but he managed somehow and made soothing sounds. "Come on, guys. This is the team we're assigned. Dani's going to be here, and she'll help us figure this out."

"No!" Josh and Kevin yelled the word at the same time and in the silence that followed they glanced at each other in surprise - a glance that quickly morphed into yet another glare.

 

 _Two for joy_  
The day was sunny, and the team's mood was almost as light. A day off from classes, nothing to do except laze around in the sun. Josh watched out of the corner of his eye as Victor tried to bully Santo into playing his sunrock for the day. He sighed, stretched, and kicked back. This was the life. Sun, pretty girls in skimpy outfits, and nothing to do.

"You're shining the sun straight into my eyes, golden boy."

Josh opened one eye and then closed it again. It was much too nice a day to deal with Kevin Ford. They had found something like an equilibrium in the days after becoming a team, but that didn't mean he wanted to actually spend his free time with the guy. There was something about Kevin that made Josh's Reaver-bred skin crawl. Maybe it was bigoted of him, but that didn't change the fact that Kevin was dangerous and Josh wasn't sure he wanted to have anything to do with him. And that was beside the fact that Josh was not the emo type, and Kevin... well, Kevin was.

Something plunked down next to Josh, suddenly blocking the sun. "There, much better."

Josh opened his eyes again and half-sat up. A large, jagged metal sculpture sat, blocking the sun. It had a vaguely umbrella-like shape, and as though it was made of beaten copper. A big, polished disc of metal reflected his puzzled expression back. "What is this?"

"You don't like it? I made it for you, Josh. It's called 'Reflection of a Narcissist.'" Kevin laughed, turned and walked away. Josh stared at the sculpture, not certain whether he was supposed to be flattered or insulted.

 

 _Three for a wedding_  
"You told them, you asshole! You--"

"Of course I told them. You were having a relationship with a teacher. Did Laurie even know? You're more of an asshole than I could ever be, Josh."

"Fuck you."

"No, _fuck you_. You have everything. A girl, amazing powers, friends, and you take it all for granted! What the hell do you know about anything?"

The sound of a fist slamming into flesh. Two cries. Neither in pain.

"You're not dead?"

"I'm not-- but I'm still going to kick your ass."

"Okay. As long as you--"

 

 _Four for a boy_  
Maybe Josh had known it was the wrong course. All of the New Mutants had, that day. But it was a choice between trusting the authority of their teachers and guardians (in retrospect, a poor decision on their parts) or fighting for one of their own. David had chosen to trust Dani, and that was how they came to be fighting Julian and the Helions in order to keep Kevin in jail. Josh let his inner Reaver out, if only for a moment, so that for that fight he could make himself believe whole-heartedly that they were doing the right thing in keeping one of their friends locked up.

It even worked for the most part. Until he saw Kevin's face behind the bars in the window. Until his team started to falter. Because they all knew that Julian was probably right. Even though it was, as David would later put it, "a nuanced situation," they still shouldn't have left him in there.

The betrayal in his eyes after that changed everything.

 

 _Five for silver_  
Everything changed.

"Josh, this is your new partner, Kevin Ford. Kevin, this is Josh Foley. He one of our premier interrogation specialists." Mystique smiled in a way that should probably be encouraging but was most sincerely not.

Still, Kevin watched Josh thoughtfully from behind the plastic visor of his contamination suit. Finally, satisfied, he nodded and held out a hand in greeting. "Nice to meet you," he said. His voice was quieter than Josh expected. A pleasant tenor, and slightly tremulous.

Not that Josh needed external cues to guess Kevin's mood. His heart was beating rapidly, and Josh could feel the adrenalin rushing through Kevin's system. It tingled like static against his fingertips. He smiled and took the proffered hand. "You too. Guess we'll be spending a lot of time together."

There was more than that, later. There was the removal of the contamination suit and exploring each other's bodies with hands that destroyed and created, both in equal measure. There was trust, there was truth, there was hurting people in the name of mutantkind. But that came later. After the introductions.

But, anyway, none of this happened at all.

 

 _Six for gold_  
Cessily's skin gleamed in the darkness, and Kevin laughed. It was an unpleasant sound, twisted and hoarse. It sounded much like everything else Selene had touched - dirty, broken and corrupt. Cessily pleaded with him, they all did. With the boy they knew. The boy who had been their sometimes friend and and sometimes object of disdain. Kevin was too far gone; or he just didn't want to let himself believe again that this time it would work out. So he reached for them with bare hands that were pale and skinny and disgusting like exposed worms.

Something else gleamed too. Josh grabbed hold of Kevin's wrist. They forced their will on each other, but the conclusion was foregone the moment they touched. Kevin's flesh yielded before Josh's touch, and another inch of blackness slid across the gold chest.

There might have been another way. But if it existed Josh didn't know what it was.

 

 _Seven for a secret never to be told_  
Josh stared at his hands and remembered Kevin crumbling away underneath them. At the end, he'd looked up at Josh and smiled. Had he been about to make a final villainous speech? Josh, in the end, wanted to imagine that he'd freed Kevin from Selene's powers the only way he could.

He looked down at his hands again, but maybe these sorts of stains weren't meant to be counted.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm using one of the many, _many_ versions of the counting crows/magpies prediction poem. I hope it's not confusing if you know a different one.


End file.
